Course:VANT149/2020/Capstone/Arts/Team54

Biographies

Sunny Sun (sunnysunzh@gmail.com)

Hello dear fellows, my name is Sunny Sun, and I am from Xi’an, China. I have been studied in Canada for four years,  I spent three years in Coquitlam in Pinetree Secondary School. In the fourth year in Canada, I enrolled in the University of British Columbia where I first learn the word sustainability conceptually.  I learned so many new ideas, facts, and concepts of sustainability which makes me more interesting in the relevance of our daily life to the globe.  In our research, we will explore people’s daily eating habits to analyze what are the norms of people’s food choices.

Calvin Zheng (calvinzheng2018@gmail.com)

Hello favourite students, my name is Calvin Zheng, and I am from Shenzhen, China. You may not have heard of this city, but I can tell you that this city is very close to Hong Kong. This is my fourth year of study in Canada, and a current student in the Vantage one program. In my first year of college, I took a course mainly about sustainability. What I am doing in this course is looking at the unsustainability of meat consumption. As a traditional meat eater, this study gives me a lot of different perspectives.

Jack Zhou (chenzhou061@gmail.com)

Hi, everyone! My name is Jack Zhou and I am from China. I am a Vantage 149 student and it is my first year in UBC. During my first year at UBC, I met friends from all over the world with different cultural backgrounds. At the same time, they also have different eating habits. Some people are vegetarian, like me, but I like to eat meat. I can't imagine my life without meat products.

Michael Kong (michaelkong0614@gmail.com)

I'm Michael Kong, a current student in the Vantage One program. I've just turned 19 a while ago so you can call me MISTER Michael now:D. I'm from China, my favourite foods are fried rice and dumplings, and I always make them myself or make them with my family when we are together.

In my last year's learning in this program, the courses that I took have raised my concern on climate change and sustainability issues, and we decided to do this research because we are looking forward to making contributions.

Introduction of our project

In the production of meat-based meals, a lot of greenhouse gases are emitted (David & Marcia 2003). According to Mann (2019), greenhouse gases are defined as any gases that can prevent infrared radiation from escaping from the earth’s surface, which would cause global warming and climate change. As Graham and Abrahamse (2017) have presented, 15% of the total human-generated GHG emissions are generated from meat-production.

According to Galli et al. (2019), consumers may change their behaviour when they are informed of the possible consequences of their actions and choices. We are concerned about this topic and are intended to contribute to the knowledge of climate change. Thus, we proposed the following research question: Is Vant149 students’ awareness of meat-production’s GHG emission related to their food choices?

Our research method is developed based on quantitative survey analysis. The data collection process was conducted from an online survey. In this survey, we asked questions regarding the eating habits of participants and their knowledge level of sustainability. We used scatter-plot diagrams to summarize and interpret the data, we selected pairs of questions and plotted each participants’ pair of answers onto the diagram, and the regression line is used to show a general trend.

The results generally show a positive correlation between the knowledge level of the participants and their willingness to eat less meat, as corresponding with our hypothetical conclusion.